


we should have never lived like we were skyscrapers

by majesdane



Category: Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-24
Updated: 2008-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 09:00:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/733891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majesdane/pseuds/majesdane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He is the one thing in her life that is still constant.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	we should have never lived like we were skyscrapers

i like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent, and you hear me from far away and my voice does not touch you.  
\-- _i like for you to be still_ , pablo neruda

 

 

It's funny, almost, how she always longed to escape this place, and now she can't bear to leave it.

It makes sense, she guesses, to want to cling to something when you have nothing left, even if this house is full of bad memories and sometimes she goes days without sleeping, just lies in bed staring up at the ceiling and pretending that her bedroom door is locked and she can't go out. Sometimes she still turns on the heart rate monitor (still standing next to her bed, she hasn't been up to the task of moving everything just yet), just to hear the steady beep every other second. It's not healthy, of course, she knows that. But it's easier than trying to cope.

A week goes by, and then she takes down all the pictures of her mother, shoves them all away in a closet somewhere, hoping to forget about them. She can't stand to look at them anymore. The wall above the piano in her room looks so empty without it now, but it doesn't matter. Her whole room seems foreign to her now, like she never even lived here.

On the night when she does manage to sleep, she dreams that she can still feel the blood on her hands, can still smell it, sick and overpowering, and she wakes up coughing, running to the window and throwing it open, trying to rid herself of it. She doesn't sleep after this, just curls up in a ball under the blankets and waits for morning to come.

She never cries.

She wants to. Of course she wants to, this feeling inside her is tearing her apart in a thousand different directions and she just wants to scream and cry until her throat is aching and her eyes are red and sore. But she can't, because it just doesn't feel real to her. Nothing does anymore. It all just feels like a dream, like something she's just sleepwalking through, and any minute now her father is going to shake her awake and everything will be just how it was before.

He is the one thing in her life that is still constant, reminds her that there is still a world outside the walls of this house. At night he comes to the house, lets himself through the back door without a sound. When he brings food, she eats it, otherwise she just goes without. They never talk, they just sit. She thinks she must look pathetic to him.

She never wanted this. She wanted freedom -- from here, from this house, from her father, from the disease she thought she had -- but she didn't want this.

She thinks that he might understand that. Maybe he does. Maybe he knows that she wouldn't be able to tell him how she felt even if he asked, and that's why he never does. Maybe he doesn't tell her to just grow up, move on, because he knows she won't. (Not _won't_ , just _can't_ , can't bring herself to just yet, even though she wants to.) Maybe that's why they can just sit in silence for hours and it doesn't feel awkward or weird or overwhelming.

One day, he says, "I'm sorry."

They're lying on her bed, staring up at the canopy, listening to the sounds drifting up from the city below. Shilo doesn't say a word, just inches her hand over until his fingers are sliding through hers and their palms are pressed flat against each other. His hand feels rough, calloused. But it's warm, it's real.

She doesn't remember falling asleep, only waking up and finding him gone; the fact that the comforter is wrinkled and creased is the only indication that he was ever here in the first place. She sits up, reaches forward, runs her fingers along the space where he was lying.

Lying back, she closes her eyes. She just has to fall asleep again.

She knows he'll be back when she wakes up.


End file.
